PENUMBRA // Tamaki Amajiki x Reader Royal AU

Chapter 12

A/N, the following chapter will depict people with mental health issues who are suicidal as people who are 'crazy' and 'disgusting' for feeling that way. This is not supposed to be an accurate description, this story is set in a different time when little was known about mental health and I am not trying to make fun of anyone dealing with these things.

After a week spent replenishing my energy, I was eager to put myself to use. The staff were adamant about putting me to use after 2 days but my body responded negatively to movement. On top of this, I could not bring myself to do anything for the first time ever. I felt as dramatic as the word, hopeless. It was as though my insides were hollow and a rendezvous point for darkness - and not the good kind. 

Upon describing my situation to my seniors, they were less than pleased, to say the least. Not only did I bring shame on myself, I also brought shame on the school and sorcerers as a whole. People were already prejudice towards magic users as it was. "How come you never taught us about this? Why were we not prepared for the biases we would face in the real world," I had asked them, after years of classes not once did they think it would be of use to inform us.

"Stop being dramatic, our previous statement may be misleading, but we are not oppressed, we are superior to all non-magic users therefore cannot be oppressed. Get over yourself, we simply do not want our name to look bad."

And I thought of my experience in the Amijiki Kingdom, the way people reacted to me, expressions instantly turning sour after discovering my true identity, and for another first time, I disagreed with those above me. Naturally I wanted to believe them, of course they had a good point - I was in the kingdom on my own, 1 magic user in hundreds of thousands of non-magic users, and although they still could not over power me if I tried, I felt alone. I certainly felt oppressed, but if a non-magic user came to the dark forest and begun spouting anti-magic user propaganda would I no longer feel oppressed? Maybe without my experiences, but with them... I was not so sure.

What my old teachers really cared about though was that I had managed to teleport all the way to the centre of the dark forest even after subconsciously while also constantly, maintaining vanity and casting larger spells, for days prior. They did not think it required a week of recovery but the distance alone had only been travelled by a select number of talented sorcerers. I reminded them that I was the best sorceress alive to which they agreed, then I pushed it and considered that maybe I was the best sorcerer ever, to which I was reprimanded for even suggesting such a proposition, then they dismissed me.

I utilised the resting week in my own way, or at least that was my excuse to justify my lack of productivity. While laying in bed or residing somewhere else in my room in the north tower (which was not all it was lived up to be, with only a window and a slightly thicker mattress, maybe to a regular student it would be deemed a significant upgrade but after my few days sleeping in the castle, it felt mediocre at best) I spent my lazier moments reflecting on the events that occurred in my 6 days at the Amijiki kingdom.

On my not so lazier moments, I scared the younger students into retrieving books for me from the library; I was not so keen on using magic as the flame I cast up when I awoke in the infirmary had left a burn mark on my palm and I was not sure if it would scar or not, and it still hurt to move so I tried to limit it. Besides, scaring my younger peers was easy, there are stories about me and my horrifying ways which is much better than my fellow peers who would make fun of me for trying so hard.

The junior sorceresses were to retrieve books for me on the history of magic and non-magic users, the Amijiki kingdom, as well as books on delirious people. Our library mainly consisted of huge, leather-bound tomes depicting spells and how-to-do guides, there was never much on history or anything about other species but I thought fear was stronger than me studying for final exams. I was wrong.

Only 4 books were brought to my bedchambers after 2 hours of searching with magic, I sent another group to fetch me more later in the week but they too failed to meet my expectations, bringing me 1 book. The first 4 books consisted of 3 books on delirious people and 1 history book about non-magic users. 'How to safely remove an Insane person',  'What to do with a Crazy Witch' and 'Why do humans want to kill themselves?' were all titles of the first 3 books.

Without needing to read further than the title, I knew 'What to do with a Crazy Witch' was not what I was searching for, I did however, give 'How to safely remove an Insane person' a try. It was not too long - more of a novel than a book - but I was clearly wasting my time, as most of the pages were filled with sketches of bizarre ways to kill a person who was not depicted doing anything other than standing there with a frown on their face.  Obviously they were deserved to die anyway because they were mental, that just could not be shown through drawings.

'Why do humans want to kill themselves?' was of much more use to me. Not only was it much more specific to the human condition, it actually asked the question I had been asking myself. My hopes were up for this third book - which was actually the size of a book this time - though, written by an unknown author who, by the way they wrote, did not seem to be human, which hindered my hope because I was not so sure they would actually understand what they were asking. Of course I was right and although I read the whole thing, cover to cover, I was left unsatisfied.

This book was more of a diary of this authors experiences with humans, who they clearly did not know much about which led to everything being written off pure assumption. A good chunk of the entries were about how all humans are insane because of their weird culture and another chunk about how devoting your life to a 'god' automatically means you want to be rid of yourself. There was one chapter on an encounter he (I figured it was a wizard by the range of knowledge, yet stupidity for people they had) had where he found a woman stabbed to death by her own hand, he was so repulsed but he wrestled with his disgust (his words) and brought himself to question her family for a reason she may have done that, other than her being mental.

He was chased away for being rude about her death before he even asked a question. The book ended on him asking the question 'where does human insanity derive from?' which frustratingly, was not too dissimilar to the question on the front cover. I ended up asking the younger ones on the second time around to find a book similar to that question, but they returned with no such luck.

These books did not help me whatsoever but maybe it meant that I was wrong. In my periods of reflection, I had been wondering about the prince and his condition. There was no hiding the fact, he was a mental person but were crazy people really something to be afraid of. How did we even come to developing this social stigma towards them? However, the books proved me wrong, it seemed we should be scared of them.

The fourth book, the history book on non-magic users, titled: The Entire North Continental History.
I began to think the titles of all the books were a bit blunt yet also misleading for it did not cover the entire history, just the human history, there were not even any mention of another species except for a chapter on a King who abolished all the dragons in the nearby area. While, some of the information was interesting, the source was incredibly old so I could not determine if it was of use.

As it turned out, there was a chapter about the rise of a kingdom which resided up a mountain, the palace built at the top. Since I had only ever been to one kingdom, I could not be sure whether this was the Amijiki kingdom or not. It was already of my knowledge that before King Amijiki came to rule, the kingdom was not divided into districts and it was not named Amijki. Unfortunately, no one could ever tell me its name so I could never know if it was true.

Over hundreds of years, this mountain rose up out of the land, providing blockage from the huge kindgom on the other side, which sought to destroy every other settlement - from the sound of it, the kings from that kingdom had actually been bewitched, either that or their scribe was secretly a sorceress and was controlling them. After the rise of the mountain - or the scribe finally died - the most recent king put an end to his reign of terror.

Feeling safer, the humans who occupied the towns scattered for miles around the base of the mountain, searched for a more permanent home and journeyed up the mountain. When they reached the top they stopped and looked out at the kingdom below them. The once evil kingdom was now nothing but fire, some other superpowers had seen their retreat as weakness and decided to strike out before the terror returned. All the migrants were shocked and took the opportunity to stay where they were, the mountain was high, it would ward off invaders, and the soil on the lower mountain was rich and healthy, while there was a cave at the base of the mountain full of minerals, possibly even gold. This mountain sounded just like the Amijiki Kingdom, but this kingdom was the Kingdom of Penumbra.